Unintended Consequences

Shaquana Green and her toddler daughter disappeared during a weekly Saturday afternoon visit in 2012, an incident that Upper Darby police described in court documents as a custody dispute.Fewer than three hours later, the girl was found unharmed near where she was last seen and returned to her legal guardian, who's her paternal grandmother, according to court records. Green was arrested for violating a court custody order that barred her from unsupervised contact with her child.

That event is how the 26-year-old Bethlehem woman, a single mother with no prior criminal record, ended up a Pennsylvania sex offender. It's a life-crippling label that Green wouldn't have if she lived in any other state.

But when the Pennsylvania Legislature expanded its sex offender law in 2011 in response to federal legislation, it added new crimes, including the one that Green pleaded guilty to in 2013 -- interference with child custody. Under the amended law, which became effective in December 2012, conviction of that crime carries a 15-year requirement to register as a Megan's Law child sex offender. There is no exemption for parental custody interference with no sexual abuse.

The Pennsylvania legislature needs to amend the statute pronto.

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2 Comments

Besides inflicting appalling cruelty and wasting resources, overbroad criminal laws undercut the societal support for a harsh punishment regime for serious crimes and give cover to agenda-driven judges to twist the law in favor of criminals.

Cynically, outlying examples of ridiculous harshness are used by the criminal-coddling left to malign the entire criminal justice system.